


Say (All I Need)

by enigma731



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5 Times, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Peter Quill Feels, Post-Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 23:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11024061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731
Summary: Five times the thing was unspoken, plus one time it was....not so much.





	Say (All I Need)

**Author's Note:**

> This story originally came out of [these thoughts](http://enigma731.tumblr.com/post/160877992252/okay-but-what-if-gamora-keeps-insisting), with additional inspiration from [this post](http://p0ck3tf0x.tumblr.com/post/98502010026/one-hundred-ways-to-say-i-love-you). Thank you to [queenofthepuddingbrains](http://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofthepuddingbrains) for beta!

 

1.

Peter stares in horror at his hands, cold blue light crackling between his fingers every time he moves them.

He’s dreaming, he thinks. He _has_ to be dreaming, because there is no way that this is actually happening right now. He rolls over in his bunk, sits bolt upright, the sheets sweat-soaked and tangled around his legs. He kicks them to the foot of the mattress, grasps blindly for the controls for the lights before finally managing to get them on.

His eyes fall closed again as his pupils struggle to adjust to the sudden brightness. His shoulders slump in exhaustion, in relief as the adrenaline begins to fade. Just a dream, like he’d thought.

Then he opens his eyes again, and sees that the room is bathed in blue. It’s coming from the light overhead, and from his hands again as well, bright tendrils catching the edges of the sheets and traveling up the bed, engulfing the whole thing within seconds.

“No,” he breathes, shaking himself, panic bubbling up in the back of his throat like bile.

He tries to divert his mind, as he did before, tries to think happy thoughts, tries to use his heart. But the light is still there, rapidly dissolving the bed into grains of sand, the whole thing collapsing beneath him.

“No,” he repeats, like the word might somehow prevent this from being real. “No, no, _stopstopstopstop_.”

He scrabbles at the sand beneath him, as though it might somehow be able to extinguish the light, might put an end to this once and for all--

\--and wakes again, gasping, on the hard, damp ground. There _is_ sand beneath him, he realizes, stomach lurching, and for one terrible instant he’s utterly disoriented, might as well be falling headlong back into the nightmare.

“Peter?”

Gamora’s voice jars him back to the present. She rests a tentative hand against his jaw and he grasps it desperately, like a lifeline. The details of the night come flooding back to him--the fact that Ego is dead, the light gone, that they are safely back on Berhert, in the relative isolation of the woods. That he was supposed to be keeping watch tonight, because the Milano is still in enough disrepair to be a security hazard.

“Sorry,” he breathes, voice ragged with sleep and panic--and possibly some dirt he’s managed to inhale. “Sorry, I was--”

“Dreaming?” Gamora interrupts. “I noticed.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter repeats. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep on the job.”

She shrugs, helps pull him upright. “It’s not a problem. I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

“Well.” He blows out a breath. “I’m awake now. Don’t think I’ll be nodding off again anytime soon.”

She meets his eyes, and nods. “Let’s rebuild the fire, then.”

“No!” he says sharply, the sound of his own voice surprising him. The memory of the light flashes through his mind again, dangerously close to cold flames. He clears his throat, tries to swallow down the panic. “I mean. The moonlight is pretty here. Let’s just stay in the dark for awhile?”

He can feel her skepticism even though her face is in shadow, knows that she doesn’t buy it for a moment. She doesn’t call his bluff, though, just reaches out and takes his hand in the darkness. Peter hesitates for a moment, then drops his head onto her shoulder. For once, she doesn’t protest.

 

2.

There was a time when Peter pretty much considered himself the King of Poor Decisions. He’s straightened out now though, or so he’s told himself -- _matured_ or something, now that he’s supposed to be a hero.

This morning, though -- This morning feels like a reprise of his decidedly less responsible self. He’s woken up in what’s clearly this port’s version of a drunk tank, though he’s embarrassed to realize that he doesn’t even recall the name of the planet he’s found himself on, although it’s been fun if the pounding headache is any indication. At least he’s alone in the cell, and he’s still wearing his clothes from the previous night, minus his belt and jacket. The floor is damp concrete and he shivers, momentarily considers whether he’s going to vomit into the hole in one corner that apparently serves as a toilet.

The guard chooses that exact moment to provide a distraction, though, drags him out of his cell to arrange transport off the premises now that he’s apparently dried out enough. He’s expecting to be thrown onto a ship, maybe a mass transport of some kind or maybe still in the custody of whatever law enforcement currently has him incarcerated.

He’s not expecting to be planted in front of a comm array and told to find his own ride home. He stares blankly at it for a moment, tries his hardest to recall where his friends have ended up, whether they’re likely to be anywhere reachable by comms or in a similar predicament. Shrugging, he punches in the code to hail the Milano, hoping against hope that someone is there to answer (and that someone is watching Groot).

He exhales when Gamora’s face appears on the screen, then grimaces a moment later when he realizes this means he’s going to have to confess the decisions that have landed him here. Assuming, of course, that she isn’t already aware. There’s probably no way he’s getting that lucky today.

She arches an eyebrow, and Peter realizes that he’s been sitting here dumbly, in silence for far too long.

“Uh. Hi?”

“Good morning,” she answers, surveying him through the questionable picture quality. If there’s any ambiguity, it doesn’t stop her next comment. “You look terrible. I was wondering when you’d be awake enough to call.”

He sighs. “You know where I am, then?”

She gives him a look. “Yes. Why would I not?”

Peter looks down at his hands, considers vomiting again, if only to get out of the rest of this conversation. “Um.” He swallows. “Would you believe me if I told you that I don’t?”

Gamora rolls her eyes. “Yes, actually. I would.”

“What happened last night?” asks Peter, because the guard hasn’t pressured him to end the conversation yet and he needs to gauge just how much shit he’s in.

“You were drunk,” says Gamora. “And you were trying to teach Rocket and Drax -- something about carrying, it sounded like? It involved you jumping onto one of the tables and singing into your gun, which you said was a microphone.”

“Karaoke,” Peter cringes, some of the night’s events flooding back to him.

She nods. “Yes, that sounds right. Needless to say, the other patrons were not amused by your pulling a weapon, even if you were directing it at your own face.”

“So I started a bar fight,” says Peter, his headache getting worse, “and you just _left_ me there?” Suddenly the shame and regret he’s been feeling flare into annoyance. His friends are supposed to prevent him from ending up in situations like this. Gamora is supposed to be his voice of reason.

“Yes,” she says evenly. “One of us needed to not get arrested in order to stay with Groot. And come pick up the rest of you idiots.”

He winces, but he can’t deny the surge of validation he feels at learning this, at the fact that she apparently _cares_ enough to come rescue his sorry, hungover ass. His emotions are out of control today, flipping like a switch in the aftermath of the alcohol.

“You’re coming to get me?” he asks finally, then realizes how desperate that probably sounds. “I mean, you don’t have to. I can arrange my own transport if that works better for you.”

She gives him her best long-suffering look. “Stop it, Peter. Just stay put. Groot and I will be there in less than an hour.”

 

3.

The job is _not_ going well.

They’ve been hired to exterminate an infestation of creatures which look unsettlingly like levitating caterpillars that belch fire. It’s decidedly not the sort of job Peter was expecting for the first gig as two-time galaxy savers, but it promises to pay well and sounded easy enough at the outset.

Too bad this happens to be one of those days when nothing wants to go right. He’s managed to down three of the critters when a fourth somehow catches him from behind. He tries to dodge the blast of fire, thinks he’s succeeded in sidestepping it and exhales in relief. Then he feels searing heat bloom across his backside and realizes that his pants are literally on fire.

“Shit!” he yelps, throwing himself to the ground in a moment of blind panic. _Stop, drop, and roll_ comes flooding back from memory, the familiar voice of some forgotten teacher from his former life.

Peter rolls without even thinking about it, focused solely on the fact that he has no interest in becoming crisped meat. The next thing he knows he’s in freefall, only then remembering that he was standing on a considerable ledge -- not _quite_ a cliff, but close -- and must have flailed himself right over the edge of it.

He lands hard on his ass, which is clearly going to be plenty sore for a while but is fortunately no longer on fire.

He gets gingerly to his feet and brushes himself off, double checks that nothing appears to be broken.

And then he hears Drax’s voice -- _”Quill, look out!”_ \-- and looks up to realize that he’s now surrounded by the caterpillar-things, his team looking down at him from above. He’s managed to drop all of his weapons in the process of extinguishing his pants-fire, and is now at decidedly sucky odds.

“Peter!” Gamora doesn’t wait for him to focus before she throws something in his direction.

He jumps, startled and still off-balance, is confused for a beat before he recognizes the Godslayer stuck blade-down into the dirt just inches from his left foot.

“Use it!” she calls, gesturing to the sword when he hesitates, and only then does Peter fully register her intentions.

The blade is surprisingly light in his hands, incredibly well-balanced, not that he has much basis for comparison. He has approximately zero experience with swords, but in this case it turns out not to matter. The blade is so sharp that it sinks into the first creature smooth as butter, requiring only a single thrust. He takes out the thing’s friend a moment later, then beheads the last two with a totally badass spin.

When he’s finished, he looks up again, finds Gamora regarding him with one of her surprising little smiles.

“What?” he asks, slightly breathless.

“It looks good on you,” she allows, nodding to the sword. “Though, remind me to teach you some proper technique if you’re going to use it again.”

 

4.

The thing about grief is that it’s sneaky.

It’s been over a month since Ego...well, _happened_ is the way Peter’s been referring to it in his memory, and most of the time, things feel surprisingly normal. The team’s completed three more jobs, there have been no more karaoke or pants-fire incidents, and Mantis has managed to avoid getting gravely injured despite Drax’s combat lessons. He’s even managed a few nights of sleep without horrifying dreams recently. All in all, he thinks he’s doing well.

And then he’s half an hour into having his ass handed to him by Rocket in a game of poker, surrounded by his friends in the belly of the Milano, when the newly-wired sound system begins to play the opening chords of I’m Not In Love. Peter freezes, the wall of emotion hitting him like a slap to the face, so sudden that he doesn’t even realize what’s happening at first. In his mind, he’s eight years old again, eyes closed, trying to forget that he’s in the hospital, that he is literally here waiting for his mother to die. His throat is instantly tight, his skin crawling with the desperate need to get away from anybody who might be about to see him break.

“I fold,” he croaks, though he’s lost all track of the game, isn’t sure that it’s even his turn. He throws his cards down on the table, gets to his feet and flees up the ladder to the cockpit, not waiting to see his friends’ reactions.

He considers the pilot’s seat briefly, but doesn’t feel like he can sit, that kind of stillness too close to memory. Instead he finds himself standing by one of the windows with his forehead pressed to the cool glass, looking out at space and trying not to picture Yondu’s face, icing over. Hot tears spill over onto his cheeks before he’s even realized what’s happening, and he’s dimly aware of the hollow hiccuping noises he’s making. It’s been years since he was called _sissy_ or _soft_ , but the intensity of emotion that earned him those insults hasn’t gone away. He’s just able to keep it buried deeper under the surface. Most of the time, anyway.

He senses rather than hears Gamora coming up the ladder, knows that it’s her because any of the others would make more noise. He bites his lip, hard, tries to get control of his breathing.

“I’m fine,” he says preemptively, not turning around. “You should go back to the game.”

She doesn’t say anything in response to that, but she doesn’t leave either, keeps moving closer to him.

“I’m fine,” he repeats, when she’s close enough that he can see her reflection over his shoulder in the glass. He swipes a hand ineffectually at his eyes and curses his emotions. “I’m fine. I’m not crying, I’m just--”

“Definitely not,” she interrupts, surprising him. She rests both hands on his shoulders but doesn’t try to turn him, just shifts closer so that he can feel the warmth of her body behind him. “I didn’t think you were.”

“Oh,” Peter says dumbly, unsure what to do with that. He doesn’t believe her for a moment, is pretty sure she doesn’t intend him to, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that she’s here, being downright _sweet_ to him, and all he can manage to do is let out a tiny, broken noise he can’t quite seem to swallow.

“What happened?” she asks after a moment, one hand running up and down his arm in little oblong patterns.

He swipes at his eyes again, makes a conscious decision not to lie to her. He owes her the truth, he thinks, for more reasons than the simple fact that she’s chosen not to call his bluff.

“The song,” he says finally. “It was one of my mom’s. It was actually the one I was listening to when she--The night she--Anyway, just hadn’t heard it in awhile. Kinda took me by surprise, I guess.”

“Memories are dangerous that way,” she agrees, shifting closer and wrapping her arms around his waist, her chin rested on his shoulder.

Peter goes completely still for a moment, surprised by her affection, though he’s starting to think that maybe he shouldn’t be. He takes a shaky breath and allows himself to relax against her, the solidness of her body grounding him in the present as the sadness begins to ebb again.

 

5.

“How come you’re not out drinking?” asks Gamora, looking up from the knife she’s cleaning at the table as Peter enters the room and sets his Zune on shuffle over the Milano’s speakers.

They’re docked for the night, Rocket and Drax eagerly taking the opportunity to continue ‘teaching’ Mantis the intricacies of social interaction via this port’s closest casino.

Peter shrugs. “Someone needed to watch Groot.”

She gives him a skeptical look. “ _I’m_ watching Groot.”

“Right,” says Peter, idly beginning to stack the dirty dishes that litter the table around her workspace. “I uh...needed to clean?”

“Okay,” says Gamora, re-sheathing the knife. “Now I _know_ you’re lying.”

He shrugs helplessly, tries to come up with another explanation. The truth is that he just wanted the time alone with her, only now he can’t seem to bring himself to actually admit that.

She gives him an appraising look, then smiles when he doesn’t have an answer.

Gamora gets to her feet, wipes her hands on the rag she’s been using to polish her knives, then holds one out to him. “Come here.”

Peter swallows, his stomach suddenly full of equal parts confusion and butterflies, but he does as he’s told. She takes his hand and laces their fingers, places the other on her shoulder, and then she starts _swaying_ in a way he’s never expected. At least not without a healthy dose of cajoling from him.

“What are you doing?” asks Peter, studying her even as he mirrors her movements.

“Dancing with you,” says Gamora, then frowns slightly. “At least, I think I am.”

He laughs, a wave of pure joy washing over him as he realizes what she’s just initiated. “You are. You definitely are.”

Peter steps in closer to her, content this time to simply sway to the music, to think about the fact that _she’s_ the one who’s wanted this. He has thoughts -- not least among them the fact that she’s _good_ at the whole dancing thing, most definitely knows how to do it. He wants to ask her about that, wants to ask her so many things he’s been wondering, but he can’t seem to find his voice. Instead he finds himself frozen in the moment, his heart hammering in his temples, an intoxicating mix of longing and hope. All he can see is her face, impossibly soft and open and warm. It’s an expression she saves solely for him, he thinks. A secret that might just be the most precious gift he’s ever received.

“Close your eyes,” she whispers, as the music switches to something slower, one of the songs he hasn’t yet listened to.

He does as he’s told, trusting her though he’s practically shaking with anticipation. He feels her lean in, impossibly close, and then she’s kissing him and he can’t put another coherent thought together. He groans against her lips, instinctively pulls her body flush against his, all the countless times he’s thought about doing this driving him on. The softness of her skin is a revelation, like the tiny sound of pleasure she makes when he cards his fingers into her hair. She smells like rosewater, and leather, and home. He’s pretty sure there are fireworks going off behind his eyes, and he might actually melt into a puddle of goo a bit later.

“What was that?” Peter asks, breathlessly, when they finally break apart for a moment.

She raises an eyebrow. “That was me kissing you. Do I really need to explain?”

“No?” He shakes his head as if that might clear it, still torn between elation and confusion. “I mean, _hell yes_ to you kissing me, I just didn’t expect--”

“I got tired of waiting for you to get around to it,” she interrupts, giving him a triumphant smile, the same look she gets when she bests him at sparring.

Peter can’t help the shit-eating grin that splits his face. “To be fair, last time I tried you did pull a knife on me.”

 

+1

“There never was an unspoken thing,” says Gamora, apropos of nothing. “At least, not in the sense that you seem to think.”

She’s curled up in Peter’s bunk, somehow managing to fit perfectly into the narrow space between his body and the wall, the fingers of her left hand toying idly with the hem of his t-shirt.

He frowns, confused but not quite alarmed by this sudden turn of the conversation. He’d probably be more worried if she wasn’t still so willingly and noticeably in his bed. “Um. You want to elaborate?”

She looks up at him through her eyelashes, runs her palm lightly up his side, and Peter spares a few brain cells to wonder whether she’s consciously _trying_ to turn him into a giant pile of mush or whether this is just her default state of existence.

“I mean,” says Gamora, “that you seem to think there was a secret I was trying to keep from you. Or maybe from myself. But there wasn’t.”

Peter raises an eyebrow, squirms a little as she moves her hand around to his back, her thumb working gently against the taut muscles there. “Oh, really? Because the fact that you’re in my bed right now sort of begs to differ.”

“I’m not saying there wasn’t a thing,” she says, with uncharacteristic patience. “I’m saying that it was never unspoken. At least not on my part.”

For a moment he considers that he may actually have suffered a break with reality at some point, or maybe a mild case of amnesia. There was the whole surprise immortality thing, and then the surprise loss-of-immortality thing, and who knows how that might have affected his brain. Plus, he’s had his fair share of concussions in his lifetime, and alcohol-induced blackouts. Still, he’s pretty damn sure he didn’t just _miss_ Gamora declaring her love for him.

He gives her his best sheepish look. “You’re gonna have to help me here.”

“Words are just words,” says Gamora, “and I am not good at them. But I’ve been trying to show you. And tell you. It wasn’t--I didn’t intend for it to be a secret. Not from you.”

It isn’t a bluff or a game, he realizes -- there’s an absolute sincerity in her voice, in her face as he reaches out to touch the curve of her cheek. He thinks about the way she’s been here from the very first, ready to chance her freedom on his dubious leadership abilities. How she’s been opening up slowly, in her own way -- smiling more, dancing more, becoming the kind of person who has wishes beyond simply staying alive for another day. How she’s been taking care of him, giving him parts of herself he hasn’t even noticed, so caught up in one specific fantasy.

“You have,” he says, finally. “You have, and I’m glad. Also sorry that I’m an idiot.”

She shrugs. “I’m not good at words. You’re not good at reading intentions. We balance each other out.”

“Lucky us,” says Peter, leaning in to steal a quick kiss because she’s talking and her lips are just way too distracting. He hesitates, then decides to hell with it, and plunges onward. “Don’t kill me, but I kinda still want to hear you say it?”

Gamora wrinkles her nose at him, but he can see a smile through it. “You want to hear me say what, that I--” She pauses, thinks for a moment before coming up with the words. “That I _dig_ you?”

He grins, torn between surprise and utter delight at the fact that she’s remembered. “Yeah. Yeah, that’ll work.”

She goes still again for a moment, furrows her brow in sudden concern. “Peter?”

“Yeah?”

“Does this mean some kind of ratings will go down now?”

Peter can’t help it, he laughs in spite of himself, then kisses away her protest. “No way. We’re way too sexy for that. Also not in a TV show.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback makes my day!


End file.
